HOW LONG WILL IT BE, I wonder, before the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) is accused of racial profiling? Given the statistical techniques currently being developed by the Ministry to identify “vulnerable” clients, such an accusation is practically inevitable.
In collaboration with the University of Auckland, the MSD is perfecting a technique for filtering out all but the worst offenders when it comes to deficient education, poor health, inadequate housing, a history of family violence and/or criminal offending. What the Ministry has yet to confront, however, is what colour it be will left with when all the data’s run. Will it be white or brown? In terms of raw numbers, Pakeha may still predominate, but, in terms of being disproportionately represented, Maori and Pasifika will, almost certainly, be streets ahead.
The MSD’s problem is that they can’t NOT use this new technique for identifying vulnerable clients. Downside political risks notwithstanding, it is fundamental to the National Government’s whole new approach to managing New Zealand’s welfare system. Expressed in its simplest terms, this new approach is about identifying the individuals and families most likely to become a long-term drain of the state’s resources – and make sure they don’t.
Serious criminal offending, for example, imposes colossal costs upon the state. A person convicted of murder, manslaughter, rape, child abuse, aggravated robbery and/or serious assault can expect to serve anything from 5 to 20 years in prison – at a minimum cost to the taxpayer of $100,000 per year. And that figure does not include the cost of repairing and then supporting the victims of criminal offending. The enormous expense of hospitalisation. The loss of productivity associated with the victims’ pain and suffering. All these social costs could be dramatically reduced if the people most likely to impose them could be rescued, early, from themselves.
The answer, according to the MSD, may lie in the statistical technique known as “predictive risk modelling”. According to the Ministry’s own website, a ground-breaking piece of research undertaken by a project team, led by Professor Rhema Vaithianathan of the University of Auckland, has:
“[D]eveloped a predictive risk model for children in a cohort who had contact with the benefit system before age two. These children accounted for 83% of all children for whom findings of substantiated maltreatment were recorded by age 5.”
The Ministry reported that “predictive risk modelling had a fair, approaching good, power in predicting which of the young children having contact with the benefit system would be the subject of substantiated maltreatment by age five. This is similar to the predictive strength of mammograms for detecting breast cancer in the general population.”
Given the well-attested link between childhood abuse and serious criminal offending in later life, the possibilities arising out of Professor Vaithianathan’s and her team’s research are obvious. If predictive risk modelling (PRM) could identify with relative precision which children, in which families, were most likely to suffer abuse, appropriate intervention by the MSD and its agencies – supported by the Police, Child Youth and Family, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Courts – could ensure that the predicted abuse (and everything likely to flow from it in the future) never happened.
The popular culture reference you’re looking for here is the film Minority Report. Based on the novella by science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick, the movie is set in a futuristic Washington DC, where a special “precrime” squad of police officers use “psychic technology” to arrest and convict murderers before they commit their crime.
Now, it would be quite unfair to suggest that PRM is in any way analogous to “psychic technology”, but it’s undeniable that the former’s widespread use in our social welfare system would give rise to just as many ethical questions as Philip K. Dick’s “precrime” law enforcers.
In the section of the University of Auckland study relating to PRMs ethical ramifications, the Project Team drew the MSD’s attention to the dangers of the data arising from its application being misinterpreted:
“It must be acknowledged that some of the data and predictor variables used by the proposed model are highly likely to be misinterpreted by at least some audiences. The decision not to report coefficients in this report, for instance, was based in part upon the belief that the insignificant contribution those factors make to the power of the tool was outweighed by the likelihood of crude and misleading interpretations of that information given existing social prejudices and stereotypes.”
Which brings us back to our original question concerning racial profiling. It would be most surprising if the unwillingness of the Auckland academics to identify all the coefficients used in their predictive algorithms was not, at least in part, related to race as a predictive factor in the maltreatment of children. It would, however, be equally surprising if the prospect of Maori and Pasifika families being targeted for special “precrime” intervention on behalf of their infant offspring was not met with loud, sustained, and entirely justifiable protest.
There is something profoundly disturbing in the very notion that science possesses the power to predict who will – and who will not – inflict harm upon their fellow human-beings. That, somehow, a computer programme can winnow out from tens-of-thousands, the one family in which violence will be done to a child.
Because, even if we could be sure that the child identified through PRM was bound, in every case, to suffer abuse if some sort of welfare agency did not intervene, there is another, deeper, problem that must be confronted. Being able to prevent individual cases of abuse would, surely, make it that much harder to persuade people to address the systemic causes of human tragedy.
If Maori and Pasifika appear more often than they should among the perpetrators of child abuse it is only because they appear more often than they should among all the other “coefficients” of dysfunction: illiteracy; the diseases of poverty and overcrowding; the psychological deterioration caused by long periods of unemployment; the mental disintegration associated with drug addiction. These are the pathologies of class as well as racial oppression. Capitalism and colonialism are “coefficients” too.
Let us leave the final word to another artefact of popular culture. Perhaps the most surprising of all Elvis Presley’s hits is his extraordinary rendition of Mac Davis’s song, In The Ghetto. To those who seek to transform our social welfare system into something resembling science-fiction, I would strongly recommend that they take the time to listen to Elvis’s poignant retelling of the tragic story of a boy condemned: not by the choices that he or his mamma made, but by a system that that left them with so few:
And as her young man dies
On a cold and grey Chicago morning,
Another little baby child is born
In the Ghetto.
What also needs to considered, very seriously, is if once identified the interventions put in place do indeed change the outcomes.
What evidence is there to suggest that the current range of interventions is producing better outcomes for individuals, families, communities, or New Zealand?
Perhaps the cause of social ills isn’t an ‘individual’ deficit, but a systemic failure to nurture and provide.
It may well be that the government can produce data that shows a high level of acuracy in finding potentially anti-social citizens but that doesn’t mean that this is either the best or the most beneficial use of our resources. If the widening gap between the rich and poor is believed to be the main factor, then policies that reduce that gap will be the most effective remedy.
I feel that this is a way to disrupt peoples lives.
What outcomes are possible from messing with peoples lives?
A very nice observation Chris.
The ethics question is an interesting one because it predicates a moral quotient. I don’t believe there is the possibility of a moral quotient here because this new development all comes from the libertarian world view, which is essentially survival of the richest and amoral. A morality has to be agreed on by a society but Aunty Margaret herself said that there was no such thing as a society.
All this PRM nonsense simply efficates (defecates!) this world view, and like the Third Reich’s honorable doctors at Ravensbruck, I’m sure the peddlers of PRM (MSD) will alter the facts to fit their own prescriptive dogma.
There are some very real concerns around predictive risk modelling. In the last few decades child care and protection has been centred on the needs of the child, and trying where possible to keep the child within the family unit. It’s not been a perfect system – no system of child protection will ever be perfect – but it did have an evidential basis and has largely worked. PRM ignores all this. Worse, it has a high rate of false positives, and (if I recall correctly) identifies about 140 variables.
The idea that it can be used to identify “at risk” families with any degree of accuracy is, at best, dishonest, as I’m sure the clever policy wonks at MSD are aware. Let’s identify this for what it is: a blatant attempt to save money to pay for future tax cuts for the middle classes who, it is presumed, don’t need child care and protection services.
As we move inexorably toward the corporate fascist state, the question this raises for me is how long before these “at-risk” families have to start wearing stars on their sleeves?
Is this what National meant about targetting the most vunerable? Taking academic witchcraft aka profilling and deciding who is the next killer?
The police already profile, like any good law enforcement agency would but this takes it to a new level, one fraught with risk. Like any stereotyping human nature is an x factor thay ultimately prevents the sum being found from the parts of the equation because you don’t have the entire equation. You can profile all you like but don’t ever hang your hat on what is an odds game, an assumption or you will be burnt.
Like Nationals privatisation of core responsibilities this experiment if relied upon as the main thrust to law enforcement or prevention can and will go badly wrong. And knowing this government even then they would cover it up to save face and our useless media would never know!
We are entering a worrying new phase of increasingly bizarre ideology taking centre stage over common sense and it looks to be purely for money saving reasons.
It’s all fine if you don’t view the underclasses as actual people but rather a sort of lumpen mass.
I’m sure the scientists themselves will say that their system is accurate when dealing with whole populations but that it could never be 100% accurate when looking at the level of individuals. There are always those that succeed despite the start they get in life but if you view the underclasses purely as a thing-over-there that needs solving then this sort of thing makes perfect sense.
Of course, if they have success treating the underclasses in this way then perhaps they will decide to try it on other groups in society too. Which of us will be next?
And then what happens?
We’re told we’re already desperately short of skilled social workers, healers, interventionists with proven track records.
We’ve got parallel systems running and some peculiar measures of success which may or may not be measured and gathered for long enough to see patterns and potentials.
We have pitiful alternatives to prison and rehabilitation or kindly care for those who have gone a long way from being able to ‘pass’ in the mainstream.
Do we pour our treasures out on the ‘worst’? Rescue who we can? And/or focus on those wavering on the brink? Or focus on the most resistant and obdurate? Because?
If we created employment opportunities – would they be adaptable enough for people who have seen the jobs world for the rip-off and oppression it can be? And could those enterprises run at a profit for the greater good of many?
That funny sound we hear is the lid coming off the can of worms, or the lid creaking open on Pandora’s box. Letting loose all the ills and miseries of the world. Will Hope be left in the bottom this time?
Concern troll?….seems like a lot of questioning over a fundamental issue of stereotyping and pigeon holing groups of people divided by race and religion using statistics.
Do you not see the end result of the dubious ‘ findings’ of paid statisticians ?
ALL SO EASILY MANIPULATED BY A GOVT WHO WANTS A PREDETERMINED RESULT TO JUSTIFY ITS DRIVE FOR PRIVATIZATION.
You’d best stay quiet until you can provide better than that , my friend.
@ Dennis Dorney: “It may well be that the government can produce data that shows a high level of acuracy in finding potentially anti-social citizens but that doesn’t mean that this is either the best or the most beneficial use of our resources. If the widening gap between the rich and poor is believed to be the main factor, then policies that reduce that gap will be the most effective remedy.”
I agree. The problem with tools such as the predictive risk model is firstly that they can’t be failsafe, and secondly, interventions are generally predicated on the idea that people have free will and can choose how to behave. I’m very sceptical about the extent to which any of us has the free will we like to think we have. I conclude that it was a scam perpetrated on many of us by the Catholic church in an attempt to get around theological difficulties.
And while there aren’t any silver bullets to remedy entrenched disadvantage, narrowing the income gap comes closest to being one. Besides, having enough money to live on confers dignity; I speak with some knowledge on that particular subject. Having dignity and financial security heals a great many wounds.
This is the report that shows a guaranteed annual income IS the silver bullet.
http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20%282%29.pdf
It all smells like more of “big brother”, top down and control kinds of systems we get, and we will get more of this, I fear.
What has happened to treat people as people, as persons made from flesh and blood, with a mind and a soul?
The biggest failure of this society is that we do despite of all BS claims of “giving each person a go”, instead have a true class system, a system of somewhat separated groups, living next door to each other, but not really seeing eye to eye very often.
Why are there suburbs and towns that tend to have inhabitants from certain ethnic or cultural backgrounds, why do we have “leafy suburbs”, that tend to be more white, with a bit of Asia and the odd other inhabitant, and then other “brown” or also “Asian” suburbs?
This shows that New Zealand is to a fair degree following the US American way of social coexistence, and is not really the racial and cultural mix in harmony kind of place, which the ruling administrators and “leaders” like to portray our society like.
There are poor areas and there are wealthier areas, especially here in Auckland, and while we luckily do not have the crime and tensions of big cities in the US or some other places, we still have division, we have income and wealth gaps, and some frictions underneath the surface.
Now MSD want to develop “tools” and systems to “analyse” and “diagnose” what is already to bloody obvious. Why this approach, it seems the bosses and “expert” technocrats at the top do not like to see their clientele face to face, and rather deal with them from distant air conditioned offices, and have their foot soldiers in the WINZ offices do the rest.
Many social problems exist and grow because people do not meet, talk and socialise with each other equally face to face, person to person, and perhaps they should start talking to communities again, to go out and meet with people, have some events, where they can assess what people really need.
This new approach sounds and smells Orwellian though, like some former Eastern Bloc approach, of surveillance, of checks and controls, leaving little privacy, intimacy, freedom and personal choice and dignity. It smells like Big Brother, keeping a watch and check on some, from the cradle to the grave, or at least a cradle to a job placement, facilitated by one of their contracted, fee earning, or “social bond” funded referral agencies.
And that is the intention, to ensure that all become obedient, little, well tuned and trained little “servants”, the wheels in the system, to assemble the nuts and bolts, to serve meals or drinks, to clean, to type figures into computers, to sit like chickens in rows in call centres, to go and work, to earn money to spend, to keep the landlord happy, and have the government get safe tax takes, and lower the need for Mr Plod go around and ensure the law is followed.
March in line, may be the ultimate success. They already started under Paula Bennett, to stand up and cheer and shout, when one WINZ “client” was placed into whatever job, and sent off the welfare chain. Well drilled, well trained, well serving, our future citizens, brown, yellow, black or white, all to “do well” and “stay out of trouble”.
I think it could be done differently and better, this surely cannot be the answer.
Maybe they will start with analysing the babies’ DNA right after, or even before birth, next?
A “genetic fingerprint” can already indicate some “troubles” ahead, like being prone to certain illness, to disease, to disability, to becoming a “troubled” person, due to likely psychological problems, that can be detected in genetic “defects” and so.
That would come next, I suppose.
This may sound ok to some, but I fear that governments just love to take advantage of checks and control measures, where they can.
We already started with “social obligations” for beneficiaries with children in 2013, remember?!
Indeed…the study of eugenics has its very genesis in such mechanisms as this sort of thing.
Couple that with the ‘ theory ‘ – and it is JUST a theory – of evolution and you can justify anything as a govt.
Throw in a bit of Spearhead of Destiny , Thule Society and survival of the fittest and VOILA !!
You got fucking Nazism .
No fucking way , mate . Not here . Not in this bloody country.
I see no problem with profiling using race….provided that the resources for change are offered.
We have had the ability to predict whether or not a child age 3years is likely to end up a criminal for some time now.
We have known this and repeatedly failed to act by increasing the number of child psychologists (oh but we did just make it much harder to qualify as one) and other early interventions that if provided research shows can turn the life of that child into something much different for society, and I would say much more enjoyable for the child.
@ Z: “I see no problem with profiling using race….provided that the resources for change are offered.”
The problem with profiling using race is that it isn’t a causal factor. If it were, violence and deprivation would be found exclusively in particular racial groups, and we know that’s not so.
Therefore, strategies predicated on race would be either completely ineffective, or the likelihood of efficacy would be no better than chance.
In this country, we have a shameful history of successive governments ignoring the results of sociological research and putting inadequate resources into this area. And with the latest budget, the problem continues, with the risibly small increase in benefits being offered together with a range of claw-back measures which will leave beneficiaries no better off than they are now. The children continue to bear the brunt of all this, yet it’s never their fault.
On the other hand, a substantive increase in basic income will help. Having enough money – not riches, but enough – to live on, confers dignity on people, and heals many of the wounds afflicting the disadvantaged. As I said above, I can speak with some knowledge about this.
All but a vanishingly small proportion of parents just want the best for their children, and whatever extra money they get will go back into those children. And enough money is orders of magnitude better than the cold comfort of bracing lectures about their budgeting, child rearing practices, and general personal shortcomings, from social workers, hectoring do-gooders, WINZ case managers or whoever.
I’d much rather my taxes went into hoisting up the lowest incomes to a live-with-dignity level, than to keeping the justice and prison systems afloat. Wouldn’t you?
One moment the left is calling for more help and assistance to the most vulnerable in society and the next the left bemoan attempts to provide that assistance.
I understand why though. Ultimately many on the left wish to change the entire system. Hence the left’s desire for radical change to provide solutions rather than working within the current framework to make improvements incrementally.
This is why I will always oppose the left because radical change does not tend to lead to optimal outcomes.
@ Gosman: “This is why I will always oppose the left because radical change does not tend to lead to optimal outcomes.”
The radical change brought about by the neoliberal revolution from the early to mid 1980s has left the disadvantaged sector of our society in a much worse situation than they were in before then. So logic would suggest that you should oppose the right as well.
BS Gosman, “help” and “support” can have two meanings, and with the propaganda we get under this government, it means a bit of a “short shift” into what people should be doing, basically just to save costs, and little other purposes.
I am sure the NAZIS “meant well” with trying to single out those “costly” disabled from society, to rid society of a burden, that “nature” did not see “fit” to live.
They were also using words like “enable” and “support”, in their ideological manner.
We know you are not gullible, but rather love trolling here, so your comment cannot be taken that seriously anyway.
Predictable response from Gosman imminent…
The image was a tip off to “Minority Report”, ‘pre-crime’ is one thing but that is looking down the wrong end of the lense, it is the likes of MSD and the corporates that need to be “rescued” from themselves before they inflict any more damage on us citizens
Chris, your article is, again a good one, and inspires some pretty fine comments above. I agree with them all. Thanks again.
When funding is cut for good quality social workers and healers etc. and ending the funding for school art and music programs etc. we leave a system focused on damaging confidence and creativity and producing more victims.
When the focus is not on dignity and respect and nurturing creativity, then we are the ones helping produce people without dignity and financial security. Our system has failed those in need,
especially our vulnerable children and the disabled and seniors and vets in crisis.
This govt. is short sighted and clearly wanting to continue a system that does not work and is creating more people at risk and not genuinely helping those in need. Tow the line, do as we tell you and then watch the light go out in the eyes of those who did not get the help they needed and deserved. Paula Bennett and John Key and their elitist “out of touch” team have failed and have kept the Orwellian image in focus rather than buried. Hide your shame and your compromised heart in another glass of wine and denial.
This is all about priorities and if those are about money and N W O (Agenda 21) style economic gain and sucking up to these greedy, criminal mega-corporations than the most vulnerable will continue to suffer and be profiled and labeled and not served with dignity and compassion.
There are models of good practice, Iceland and others.
The strength of WILL has to be there and with this govt.
THEIR WILL IS BURIED IN RIGHTEOUS ( M U M B O – G U M B O ) DENIAL AND GREED.
======= >>>>> Wake up voters, especially women – what is up? with some much John Key support with women ? ?
More on Agenda 21 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ykELwj1Ta8https://
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vezv1c78WDE
Can’t say i see a problem with this. The proposal is to use statistical techniques to identify at risk families, so that state services can intervene positively and “break the cycle” of violence and dysfunctionality. It’s not to lock people up in advance. Just seems like a way of using resources more effectively to help those most at risk.
This article and the associated comments remind me of the outcry over the proposal to assist beneficiaries to access contraception.
Just another plug that redistribution of wealth is the only way to help those with problems (and even then, only when it’s done by a party whose colours are Red or Green).
To put it into fewer words: “You lot would boo Santa Claus.”
Well of course ‘us lot’ would boo santa claus. He’s not real silly!
The Tooth Fairy, on the other hand, is.
Ha !…of course a another concern troll like yourself wouldn’t see anything wrong with this…until it affected you – or your family , or your privacy , or your autonomy…
Buddy ,…your another concern troll… but …at least you came on with the view you ‘ cant see anything wrong with this ‘…
At least you were honest enough – or impetuous enough – to show your true stripes.
Now you see , this is where it gets interesting…this is where we really see people in their true colours…and their intellects….or even perhaps…what sort of nasty spirited evil minded little grots this country is capable of spawning.
You see…lets be honest about this …you know…that as far as percentages go…Polynesians will be disproportionately represented – after the European descent population is subtracted of course to suit your racist bias…
And that classically ,…this suits your type just peachy….Why ?
Because … using the ‘ whipping boy ‘ of the Polynesians – which has always been the convenient ploy of the Right wing in this country – usually under the guise of ‘how much these bludgers and losers are costing us’ ….that this justify’s even more the use of this sort of 1930’s Hilterite tactic to control the Left wing….
But whats really intriguing is that you , like the Right wing political manipulators who funded this program at University , ….instead of funding and supporting the solutions – are in total agreement in singling out a predetermined sector of the populace to further validate and victimize a sector of this society to justify further dis-empowerment and impoverishment.
And that , my dear friend ..is where this is leading to and is precisely the very motive behind so many such as yourself and those of the Right wing ilk.
In the 1930’s it was called Nazism , and these days it is called neo liberalism.
Great article Chris.
Just note that Rhema no longer works at Auckland Uni. She is at AUT and has a grant of $600,000 to develop with others the PRM tool for use in the US.
Simon Collins ( NZH) reports
Initial testing by the Social Development Ministry, looking at the 5 per cent of children born in 2007 who would have been rated at highest risk in the model, found that 31 per cent suffered substantiated maltreatment by age 5. That figure was projected to rise to 40 per cent by age 10, but still meant 60 per cent would have been targeted unnecessarily (“false positives”).
That 5 per cent judged at highest risk would have accounted for 32 per cent of all children who actually suffered substantiated maltreatment by age 5 – much more than their fair share, but leaving 68 per cent who would not have been identified (“false negatives”).
But Rhema was reported then to say
“In human terms, it is like walking through a maternity ward and identifying the one child in every five who has 10 times the chance of being abused and maltreated as all the other children put together,”
I dont get it. Does anyone? Even if the figures made sense does the child for whom the red light goes on get the equilvalent of Christmas while the disadvantaged child next door who has not yet been deviant enough gets nothing? What does this do to incentives? This seems to be a technocratic solution that few will be able to get their heads around but makes plenty of work for statisticians.
“Initial testing by the Social Development Ministry, looking at the 5 per cent of children born in 2007 who would have been rated at highest risk in the model, found that 31 per cent suffered substantiated maltreatment by age 5. That figure was projected to rise to 40 per cent by age 10, but still meant 60 per cent would have been targeted unnecessarily (“false positives”).
That 5 per cent judged at highest risk would have accounted for 32 per cent of all children who actually suffered substantiated maltreatment by age 5 – much more than their fair share, but leaving 68 per cent who would not have been identified (“false negatives”).”
I live next door to a sometimes troubled family, meeting all the criteria so many write about. They are struggling, and while I see some defects, it can be explained why some things go wrong. When you get raised to struggle and work, compete, but have limited educational and other means, it is more likely you cannot cope with crisis, and the likelihood of crisis is high in such socio-economic circles.
It can be a catch 22 situation, and it often is.
Then we end up with media and so re-enforcing the blame game, now wonder they turn out like that, many think.
But what is actually offered in solutions. We have system full of BS, on one hand we try some social experiments, on the other people get incessantly inundated with consumerist and competitive messages, like commercial advertising, buy to be, or not to be, it sounds like. Achieve and be positive, and all will get well, the US American Think Positive brigade preach.
Who actually has the feet on the grounds and lives in the problem areas? I dare say we have endless and numerous middle and upper class “experts” tell us what is right, with their selective studies in their hands, but most have never been at the coal face.
Hypocrites, preachers and their failures, that is what we get galore, instead of real answers.
Hmm. This is a very interesting idea.
What I wonder though, is why not start with the people who are easy to help? I have spent six years of my adult life seeking work and, as yet, have never really found it. I suffer from severe depression which I don’t seem to be able to find any help for that, well, helps. Aside from those things though, I’m a bright, educated person with boundless creativity, constantly having new ideas for all sorts of things. It really should not be that hard to find me work, and yet I’ve had Work and Income branch managers TELL ME TO MY FACE that I’m not good enough for dish hand work.
So I’m left wondering how they’re actually going to help people with worse struggles than mine find work, when they can’t even help me.
I just want to go to work every day and know that what i’m doing helps people, and doesn’t contribute to the unequal, capitalist society that we seem to be becoming, but combats it. There must be work for me out there, something meaningful, where some of my ideas (political, and otherwise) could maybe see the light of day.
I’ve digressed. My point really is just that if they can’t help people like me put their fingers on the right opportunity after six fucking years (on and off)…
In former times ….people who became the thinkers and political dreamers were valued…although…aesthetics aside…we have moved rapidly into an age whereby the pragmatic , the practical , the ruthless …are valued more than the social planners.
Social planners…even that has become a euphemism for the neo liberal ideology …. you are probably being squeezed into a productivity driven line of service work rather than exercising the right to value more intangible qualities …such as politics , philosophy , political science or social work…
The mark of a healthy society is one where ALL are contributing.
It is the age old struggle between ancient Sparta and Athens.
When you advance the values of Sparta…you loose the qualities of humanity that Athens sought to promote – such as altruistic thought , philosophy etc…( albeit …even then it was not the ideal by any chalk ) .
Go the other way towards Sparta..you end up with the macho , militaristic power hungry and impersonal ethos that they endorsed.
So perhaps…instead of trying to be a round peg in a square hole…have a look at social science, philosophy, political science …..not everything has to do with a preponderance towards mathematics and linear thinking.
That is…if your not just pulling peoples tit about what you typed…
As we are not that easily deceived to spot a counterfeit…to which I hope you are not.
It would be OK if MSD’s profiling actually helped the people it identifies. But of course it won’t.
No …it will further justify the neo liberal motives for using cost /benefits as a ruse to entrench and manipulate a sector of society for future use as a ‘drain on the taxpayers purse ‘….
Which will further be used as a tool to force the populace to cower out of manipulative fear of state control and stigma leading to intrusive intervention against the most sacrosanct of all sectors – the family.
Vicious.
Totally vicious.
Put a barcode on them and brand them with a large L on their foreheads Paula Bennett.
Then ghetto-ise them.
Problem solved.Sorted. No more poor people to walk by on the way to the cash machine. Better still, get a phone app so you don’t have to visit a cash machine.
Just need an island to send them all to. And it’s good that you are stopping boat people so they can’t get back to the mainland by boat.
And meanwhile, the PM and Moonbeam are having cuddles. Priceless. F-ing priceless.
Chris,
How much of this is about distrust of National and how much about PRM itself? All professions do “profiling” – what do you think you GP is doing when she discusses your symptoms and takes your blood pressure? – the issue is how it is used.
Countless coroners all over the world have asked government agencies why they are not better at sharing information when children have died because government agencies did not share their worries. Predictive modeling is essentially doing what the coroners asked: government agencies take the information they have, compare notes and use what they learn to be better at helping vulnerable people. The use of computers and PRM is just a lot cheaper (and less likely to lead to mistakes) than asking thousands of social workers and case managers throughout the country to look at their paper files.
Of course this can be abused, but that is about keeping an eye on the users, not the process itself.
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